How Not to Singe Your Eyebrows Off While Cooking on July 4

It's time to stock up on fireworks and dust off the grill. Yes, with July 4 right around the corner (Tuesday, actually, which is kind of a strange day to set fire to so many things, no?), here are cooking tips and suggestions for all you hardcore home cooks out there. Have a safe and happy Independence Day, folks.

"Do I still have eyebrows?" my fiancé said to me a couple of weeks ago after he was standing too close to my parents' outdoor grill.

You see, we turned the grill on, started talking and forgot to turn the heat down. Once we opened the grill, a blast of 650-degree heat came shooting out, burning (or singeing) anything it touched. In this case, it was my fiancé's eyelashes and eyebrows. They were both scorched.

This week, we’re putting a spin on basic grilled chicken with a recipe for grilled teriyaki wings.

With “teri” referring to shine or luster, the word "teriyaki" likely conjures thoughts of a glossy, sticky-sweet sauce that you often find coating chicken and steak. But there is one important component missing in that thought, and that’s the “yaki” portion of things. "Yaki" refers to the method of grilling or cooking over direct heat. Together, teriyaki is a dish composed of grilled meat or seafood coated in a tare (sauce), which is generally made using soy sauce and two types of rice wine: mirin and sake.

Okay, before you go on and on about how "real brisket is smoked by manly men with manly intentions" and all that, let me just preface this by saying my father did the majority of the cooking in our house and made one of the most incredible briskets in the history of cattle. And he did it in the smoker I believe he considered his most prized possession.

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